


And even though it surrounds me I don’t think red’s my favorite color

by Diredre



Category: Risk of Rain (Video Game), Risk of Rain 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Rated teen for swearing, pretty non graphic violence, some happy moments are included
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28492215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diredre/pseuds/Diredre
Summary: The UES Safe Travels is destroyed.The Captain panics. Nothing is right.[Or, a fic in which the UES Safe Travels ship is destroyed and a Mercenary saves his Captain from dying with his ship. But now the two are lost on a strange planet with no way to get home. There also seems to be a strange purple dog-like creature  that’s drawn to them...]
Relationships: Captain/Mercenary but it’s completely platonic, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8





	1. Everything is bitter

The Captain panics. Nothing is right.

No, no, no no no no no no no no- this shouldn’t be happening,

This ship- what’s happening?

Providence is dead. He’s been dead- what’s wrong with this ship? This is no minor problem, no human being could have caused this much damage.

But it doesn’t matter. He needs to go. Everyone needs to go or they’ll die in this ship. They can’t die like this. The Captain scrambles over to the overspecker microphone. 

‘Attention, the UES Safe Travels is-’ his body is thrown across the room as the ship rocks, and he’s cut off. The Captain- he’s getting old. It hurts, his joints hurt and he can’t bring himself to stand. It was a nasty fall. It hit hard, and his head hurts now.

Ah. Well at least he’ll go down with his ship, hoping that his crewmates got out. 

The blaring noise of the emergency sirens drown out every other noise. The flashing red lights are headache inducing. 

A Mercenary cuts through the metal doors of the UES Safe Travels. There’s no punishment for that now. He spots someone- the Captain- laying on the floor.

He quickly sheathes his blazing blue sword to rush over to his Captain. He grabs his one remaining hand to search for a pulse.  
He’s alive.

This Mercenary isn’t the largest or strongest. But with the adrenaline of his and his Captain’s lives on the fucking line he manages to drag the Captain across the floor, out of his cockpit. Out of this hell.

He throws him into an escape pod and hops in himself, pressing certain buttons in a certain order just like everyone was taught him training.  
A loud whirring is heard and a few gears shift and the two are shot out of the ship at a high velocity. 

The Mercenary tries to peer out the window of the pod. 

What a horrific sight. It’s- it’s so heart wrenching.  
The UES Safe Travels, going down in flames, the area holding all the fuel would be exploding any second now. 

He didn’t want to be one to witness that sight.  
He grips his sword solemnly. He leans against the walls of the pod. He glances up to his Captain again and checks his pulse once more.

He’s alive. The Mercenary sighs in relief.

The Captain doesn’t move. He must have passed out or fallen asleep, or something. But, it doesn’t really matter. He’ll wake up soon, right?

It doesn’t matter. They are okay, they are safe.  
Safe in their small and cramped escape pod.


	2. You can yell all that you want

The Captain awakes. It’s… hot. It’s really hot.  
He can hear various noises from outside of his pod. The most remarkable is the sound of footsteps…light and quick, accompanied by heavy ones.

‘How cute!’

The Captain doesn’t recognize that voice.

‘Just like a big dog! Just…don’t get too close with that mouth. No, no kisses you, hey, no-’ A brief jingle of chains is heard. ‘No, Acrid. We have been over this. Your saliva is acidic. No kisses.’

The Captain listens in a little more to hear growling followed by a scream and the slash of a laser sword the Captain recognizes all too well.  
He panics, he fears for the worse. 

He’s- he’s in an escape pod. He toggles the latch keeping him in and kicks the door down before cocking his gun and holding it out defensively before accessing the situation.

Two beings turn around to face him. A Mercenary, one of his Mercenaries. And a large purple beast. It seemed rather calm. A small purple dinosaur-like creature lay dead behind them.

‘My C-’

‘Don’t speak. I’ll put it through your teeth.’ He gestures to his gun.

The purple beast sneezes and a green liquid comes out of its nose.

‘I- I don’t know what this is. But I know you’re one of my Mercenaries. And all I know is that I should have died in that ship. I want you to tell me everything that’s happened to me. And don’t try any shit. I’ve got good aim.’

‘Weeeeeelll, the ship was crashing so I saved my Captain of course. I couldn’t let ya die back there. But um. I’m not really sure where we are now. But I found this funny looking dog!’ The Mercenary gestures to the purple beast who blinks its four eyes on queue ‘I named him Acrid and he’s pretty friendly.’ Acrid barks out a ‘owa owa’ and wags his short tail. 

‘I don’t want that abomination getting close to me. And you. My Mercenary, I feel great disappointment in knowing you could be so careless in adopting some creature you’ve found.’ The Captain aims his gun to the sky and fires, much to the Mercenary’s relief. He’s glad to know he probably won’t get shot now. ‘But. I must thank you for saving my life.’ The Captain folds his arms behind his back. 

‘So, uh,’ The Mercenary starts. ‘You’re gonna wanna be kinda careful because monsters kinda appear out of nowhere a lot. But they aren’t friendly ones like Acrid. They uh, kinda almost killed me.’ The Mercenary sheathes his blade. ‘Like that one there.’ He points to the corpse of the small purple dinosaur. ‘But my boy Acrid is good at warning us when something mean is near! He’ll grow pretty loudly.’ The Mercenary kicks a pebble on the ground. ‘But these monsters love to hoard gold for some reason, so uh, make sure to pick up the bags of gold they usually drop because a lot of the cargo from the ship dropped on this weird planet. And we kinda need gold to open the chests. I also found this funny looking coin on one of them!’ The Mercenary holds up a small blue coin.

The ship. The Captain forgot about the ship for a second-  
He looks to his mechanical arm and taps the small screen. He requests a beacon and orbital probes. He prays they drop down. He prays to whatever god is out there. He looks up.

The Mercenary and Acrid look up too. Expecting something. ‘Sooo, Cap, what are w-’

‘Don’t call me Cap.’

‘So, Cap,’

‘Are you fucking deaf? I just told you not to call me that.’ The Captain looks up to the sky again before realizing that it’s been long past the time what he requested should have dropped. ‘This is so fucking stupid I- why aren’t you upset? Worried? We are in the middle of fucking nowhere and our ship is gone. They aren’t responding. And you’ve made friends with a fucking monster? No attempt to escape or contact the ship?’ The Captain harshly says. The Mercenary seems to shrink down a little. ‘Look. I’m, I’m sorry for freaking out. But you need to face the shitty reality we are in.’

Acrid bumps his head against the Mercenary’s side. ‘It’s- it’s okay,’ The Mercenary stutters. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to think of it too negatively. I just...wanted to keep an optimistic outlook. Acrid helps a lot.’ 

‘It’s whatever. Just keep him away from me. I just- need some time to access this situation.’ The Captain turns around. ‘Stay watchful, my Mercenary.’

——

‘I hope he cheers up, Acrid.’ Acrid continues to roll in the dirt. ‘Feels weird how he calls me ‘his Mercenary.’ Like, I guess I technically am a Mercenary hired for him but it feels weird ya know? He can just call me ‘Mercenary’ or maybe if he warms up I could elevate to the nickname, ‘Merc’ and then I could call him ‘Cap’ and he wouldn't be such a grumpy old man anymore.’ Acrid coos.  
‘Thanks for listening, Acrid. You’re the best.’ The Mercenary rubs Acrid’s exposed belly.


	3. Late nights in the middle of June

‘Ow- what..?’ The Mercenary whines after something bonks his helmet. Acrid goes alert too, sniffing and looking up to the air. 

The thing hits his helmet again, but this time it’s repeatedly bonking him. It doesn’t hurt per say, but the vibration it creates really sucks. ‘Ahhg- where are you,’ The Mercenary reaches for his sword, so he can randomly slash around till the bonking stops. 

‘That won’t be necessary.’ The Captain grumbles as he treads over to the Mercenary, his coat jingling and ruffling. ‘I managed to make some of these with some of the parts in the escape pod,’ He pulls his hands from behind his back and two small microbots whir into the air, joined by a third one that comes from behind the Mercenary. 

‘Woahh, Cap, w-’

‘Don’t call me that or you won’t get one.’

The Mercenary’s heart jumps. ‘I get to keep one?!’ He bounces a little closer to the Captain and puts his hands together, similar to when one would be praying. ‘I’ll be a good Mercenary. The absolute best. I want one of those robot thingies.’

‘Don't beg me for one like that. It feels weird, and I don’t like it. Just take it and shut up.’ The Captain whips one at the Mercenary’s helmet and it knocks him back slightly, before buzzing and aloofly starting to circle his head slowly.

Acrid snarls and whines as a microbot is thrown at his snout before mimicking the actions of the one thrown at the Mercenary. 

‘Oh no! My baby boy,’ The Mercenary drops to Acrid’s side and rubs his snout. ‘Hrm. I thought he was finally warming up to us. It’ll be okay.’ The Mercenary stands up and the Captain has already walked away before he had a chance to thank him. ‘Uhh, I mean. At least he’s starting to acknowledge your existence?’ The Mercenary turns to Acrid and shrugs. He’s not really sure what to do next. He’s- he’s kinda- just a little little, little bit intimidated by the Captain. 

Ah, wait. The Captain never really...told him what this little robot does…?

He’ll just leave him alone for now. He guesses he’ll just try and find all the chests scattered across these vast plains, to kill some time for now. 

The Mercenary is lucky Acrid is quite mobile, just like himself. It makes it easy for them to race up the hills. 

The Mercenary looks around, looking for a high point to jump to. ‘Hrmm…’ he ponders. There was this one particular hill they had never gone past. He wanted to hold off on going too far from the Captain, at least till he woke up. But he doesn’t have any fear now. With that frightening shotgun for a hand he’s sure the Captain will be okay. 

Within minutes they’ve managed to scale the hill and stand at the top, glancing down. It’s getting later and later. I guess this is one of the planets that has a sun, or some kind of star.

The colors of everything seem to fade.  
It’s nice, in a way. The monster attacks lessen and things get calm and quiet. The Mercenary isn’t really one who loves quiet things; but he’s thankful for this moment. He’s tired. 

Bah, never mind that. He’s got a plateau to explore.

The two beings rush around, quickly looking for anything of interest, but they don’t spot more than a few chests and large pipe like structures discarded into the ground. 

Until something sharp is spotted in the corner of the Mercenary’s eye. It’s...rather thin and sharp and appears to be a dark red, but that could just be the lack of light. 

He jumps down to investigate. He lands with a clink as his feet touch a hard and metallic ground, not something you would normally find in an environment such as this. He’s landed on a large plate of metal. On both sides slender and sharp metal curves upwards and in the middle is a pedestal with a leaver. The Mercenary knows better than to go around cranking random leavers, so he leaves it be. But ah, what an intriguing structure indeed! 

He’d have to tell the Captain about this later.


	4. Part of a bright blue summer

The Mercenary wakes up to the sounds of cicadas buzzing. Acrid is fast asleep on his lap. Acrid heavily weighs down on his legs, making him unable to get up. The Microbot aloofly circles him still. He looks around to see the Captain, surrounded by various trinkets, he also appears to be donning a few of them. 

He glances over to him, quietly peering over at him. He seemed to be holding a half of a humongous fruit. The Captain stops to look around and the Mercenary quickly turns around to act like he wasn’t doing anything. 

He prooobbably didn’t see anything. Probably.

‘You know, you aren’t very sneaky.’ The Captain’s low voice rumbles behind him. 

‘A-ah haaaa…I’m, i'm working on it. But the real question here is what are YOU working on with that fat fruit…just curious…’ The Mercenary looks away. 

‘You’re also…incredibly bad at acting. It’s much less painful for me and you if you just speak your mind.’

‘Ok, gimme some fruit it looks good,’ The Mercenary turns around and holds his hands out like a child wanting upsies. 

‘This fruit,’ The Captain starts as he holds the fruit away from the Mercenary’s hands. ‘This is a very special type of foreign fruit. It has great healing abilities, and it’ll leave you feeling quite refreshed and rejuvenated. But please, please do not make a mess. It’s quite sticky. ‘ The Captain finishes and all the Mercenary does is continue with his grabby hands. ‘You’re such an idiot.’ The Captain mocks as he drops the fruit into the Mercenary’s hands. 

The Mercenary takes a moment to savor the moment, gazing hungrily at the fruit’s soft flesh. 

A few grunts are emitted from Acrid who momentarily begins to sniff around. 

He stretches and sprawls out over the Mercenary’s lap, before rising and staring expectantly. 

The Mercenary takes off his helmet. ‘You gotta take a small bite, gentle,’ He demonstrates, taking a small bite of the fruit. He holds out the fruit to Acrid who extends his neck and takes a small nibble of the fruit and swallows it whole. 

The Mercenary and Acrid quickly finish their half of the fruit, and the Captain doesn’t leave them this time. ‘Oh by the way, Cap- Captain,’ The Mercenary quickly corrects himself. ‘I found this weird structure thing, it was a weird metal thing with a lever, and I thought we should check it out because, besides that there seems to be no way off this place.’ The Mercenary stretches and flops down on his back. The grass is soft. Green. What a nice color. Maybe even a favorite color.

The Captain kicks his helmet head softly. ‘A soldier shouldn’t be carelessly laying down on enemy territory.’

‘I mean, I guess but-’ The Mercenary wipes off the dirt on his helmet from the kick. ‘I think they got scared of us. It’s calm now.’ 

‘That may be true, but we must still be alert. I also have something to inform you on, and I would like you to come with me.’

‘Okay,’ The Mercenary puts his arms in the air and does the ‘grabby hands’ signaling for the Captain to help yank him up. 

‘I think you can stand up by yourself.’ He turns around and walks away.

‘Hey,’ The Mercenary scrambles to his feet and runs to the Captain’s side. Acrid follows. ‘You’re no fun you know.’ He crosses his arms and pouts even if the Captain can’t see it. 

‘This situation isn’t something we should take lightly you know. It’s serious.’

‘Yeah I get it, but like,’ The Mercenary pauses for a moment. ‘Just a little fun won’t hurt.’

‘Anyways, while you were sleeping the whole day, I managed to unlock every chest I could find. I managed to form a skeleton key that unlocks every chest. They all have the same lock type. So, we don’t need to gather money anymore. I managed to accumulate a variety of items. Feel free to take what you think might benefit you. As a Mercenary, one picked especially to ride my ship, I expect you know these items?’

The Captain gestures to the small pile of items. 

The Mercenary recognizes…some of these items.

He scans the pile, looking for something he for sure knows the name of. His eyes land on a pink crystal.

The Mercenary gasps, catching the Captain’s attention before he realizes it isn’t a gasp of fear. He reaches for the crystal and shows the Captain. ‘Look! a focus crystal!’ He retracts his arms to look at it. ‘Back in the ship, all of us Mercenaries used these for sword sharpening, these things are literally so good, they are so tough it takes forever for them to wear. It reminds me of my training days.’ He looks expectedly at the Captain. ‘Can I have it?’

The Captain looks down. ‘Perhaps i misjudged you. You seem to know a lot about that crystal, and I assume you know a lot about the rest as well. Maybe you are a good Mercenary.’ The pauses. ‘You may have it’

The Mercenary is silent. Before the Captain raises his head and the Mercenary flinches at the sudden movement of the other. ‘Y-yeah! I studied. I didn’t just train at the camp, I studied. all day. So I know, like a lot.’ The Mercenary prayed to whatever god was out there that the Captain couldn’t see through his lie. He’s so glad you can’t see his facial expression through his helmet. 

‘How impressive. Well then.’ The Captain turns his back to the Mercenary. ‘I trust you will pick out a good set of items, then we will travel to this metal structure you yapped about before.’ 

‘Yup,’ The Mercenary gives a thumbs up before the Captain wanders to a rock he prefers to rest on and lays, waiting.

The Mercenary looks down to Acrid who looks up at him with an excited expression. ‘So- do you know what any of these are…? Like, any of them?’

The only response he gets is a singular ‘owa’ from Acrid who appears giddy, as usual.


	5. You dream of twisting roots

‘This is it?’ The Captain taps his foot on the dusty metal. 

‘Yeah. I think this might be the only way out we have.’ The Mercenary sighs.

‘Are you ready then? Let’s switch it and see what happens.’

‘Woa. That’s...really out of character for you. You being the cautious type and all.’

‘It may be. But me and my crew had a small amount of background information on these things. Teleporters, that’s what they are. We never completed the research on them.’ The Captain mutters bitterly and a wave of sorrow washes over both men. ‘You must be prepared for whatever shows itself.’ 

The Mercenary draws his blade and gets into stance, like he’s done so many times. ‘‘I was born ready.’

The Captain scoffed. ‘Whatever. Just make sure you don’t die.’

‘Good idea. I never thought of that.’

‘Lets get it on with.’ The Captain turns to the lever, looking at it and hesitating to crank it before he forces himself to do it. 

The ground begins to shift…

The ground begins to crack and break in spots, beetles emerge and it’s nothing they can’t handle.

...then the ground almost seems to explode in a spot, and a terrible creature emerges. A beetle, it seems like one? Expect for the fact it towers over everything in sight. 

It looks in the survivor’s direction and lets out a terrible screech, and Acrid growls back. 

At the horrid noise all the emerging beetles head towards them with new vigor.

The Captain cocks his gun. ‘This must be their queen,’ He pats the Mercenary’s back, which sends him stumbling forward a little bit. ‘Kill every last monster.’ He says nothing more as he rushes into battle, weaving around every small beetle in order to reach the queen. 

Acrid leaps at the queen and lands in a puddle of acid and spits as much acid as he can manage before clawing at the beast, it hissing in pain all the while. 

The Mercenary shakes. He grips his sword. A terrible power in shaking hands. He thinks to himself how he can help, how he can help without getting in the way. 

The small beetles, right. He could do a good job focusing on the small ones. He weaves into combat, small beetles not lasting long against his sword. 

Till his sword clinks on a beetles shell, instead of cutting through it. A dark blue beetle with a shining blue shell lunges at him, but he’s quick to jump backwards. Find a soft spot. The chest is exposed, that’s a good spot to aim for.

——

The battlefield seemed to be filled with corpses of beetles, some discolored. Their queen lay dead, bleeding out on the ground she had burst out of. 

Like it were some type of trail, after the death of the queen, an all too familiar ‘pop!’ Is heard and three items seem to appear out of nowhere next to the teleporter. They sit on the ground mockingly. 

The Mercenary and Acrid lay on the ground, attempting to catch their breath so that this terrible burning feeling in their chests go away. The Captain leans against a rock attempting to catch his. The Captain wipes the blood on his gun on the grass below. ‘Some bullshit. I’ve never seen so god damn many in my life,’

At least it’s over now, thinks the Mercenary, but he’s too tired to speak up. 

‘Come on. If you’re-’ The Captain interrupts himself in order to cough. ‘If you’re that tired why don’t you go lay in that muddy water? The pool is near that one hill.’ He takes off his hat to cool down a little more. ‘But I wouldn’t put it past these titanic plains for that water to be...quite dirty.’ 

The two tired beings manage to drag themselves to the ground water. The Mercenary may not be...the smartest but there’s no way he’d actually take off his suit to bathe in this water. Maybe it’ll cool off in the water though…  
Acrid seems to enjoy it very, very much. He rolls and splashes in the muddy water, his purple skin slowly becoming covered in mud.

It’s all cool and calm now. 

‘When you two are done bathing in the mud, I’d like to get a move on.’ The Captain mutters as he crosses his arms. 

‘Let’s rest a little more. My body hurts.’ The Mercenary whines as he lays motionless. ‘We worked hard.’ 

‘Sure. I think the bullets in the queen’s head is what really did her in, but whatever.’ 

‘Acrid helped too.’

The Captain scoffs. He chuckles to himself, luckily the Mercenary doesn’t hear.

——

The three decide to sleep on it. Get some rest before messing with the lever anymore. Who knows what it could cause this time? 

It’s late, and the Mercenary and Acrid are soundly sleeping in their usual sleep pile. The Captain never needed too much sleep to function well. He’s always been able to run on little to no sleep but, it’s not all bad. It may not be the most comfortable, or warm, but the grass is so, so soft. It’s not the type of smooth and bunched up grass, it’s not long to the point where it becomes flattened easy. It’s a little overgrown but it's thin and plentiful. 

The three dream of twisting roots, broken tree trunks and puddles of mossy water. Murky water in ditches that sits undisturbed. Trees that twist up to the greatest heavens, up into the grey and monotone sky. The air is heavy, full of water and dew.

——

‘I’m so glad we got some rest, my body really needed that.’ The Mercenary says as he stretched upwards, taking a deep breath. 

‘Yes, it was much needed. Now if you’re ready, let’s go.’ The Captain folds his arms behind his back and starts to walk in the direction of the teleporter.

‘He sucks at socializing.’ The Mercenary says to no one in particular. But, I guess Acrid is listening. ‘He just...kinda agrees with what I say and then moves on.’ The Mercenary pouts. ‘I just think it would be kinda nice to have someone to actually...confide in…’ He sighs. ‘But it’s whatever. I don’t really care that much’ He tried to convince himself. (He didn’t do a good job at convincing himself.)

The Captain tries to pretend he didn’t hear anything and moves on towards the teleporter.  
Acrid runs ahead of them. Both men wonder why he seems so excited. 

Anyways, let’s see what this teleporter does. Hopefully nothing bad happens. Hopefully?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can’t write fighting or action scenes for shit so my apologies


	6. Just know I miss your playful taunts to my core

They feel dizzy. 

The Captain cranks the leaver and at first nothing has happened. The left over gold bags some monsters were carrying that fell to the ground seemed to flatten. 

Acrid starts to flip out, he yelps and runs in small circles when the Mercenary notices it.

Acrid’s feet...they’re fading. This causes him to look at his own feet, and to his dismay, they are fading away too. Fading into a whitish blue color, fading into small particles. His heart is in his throat. 

‘Cap! Cap- my feet, my,’ The Mercenary chokes, he can’t talk. He tries to, but his throat is dry. He can’t speak. He stumbles, even though his feet aren’t there to touch the ground. He stumbles and falls onto the Captain, clutching onto his coat like his life depended on it.

‘What the hell-’ The Captain attempts to shove the Mercenary off him. ‘Get off of me- what’s wrong with you?’ The Captain continues to attempt to shove off the panicked Mercenary, but he doesn’t budge. The two continue to shove each other and Acrid runs wild as he’s fading away at a fast rate. The two don’t notice how almost half of their bodies are gone

‘GET THE HELL OFF OF ME- WHATS GOTTEN INTO YOU?!’ The Captain yells as the Mercenary only holds him tighter. Those are the final words he’s able to spit out as the rest of their bodies turn to nothing. 

——

It’s like they fell asleep and woke up again.   
They feel dazed. They feel like they’ve been splashed with cold water. 

The air is heavy, it’s full of water and mist. Twisting trees grow up into the heavens, and the ground is damp. 

They still are in that position- the Mercenary is still clinging to the Captain. The Captain quickly realizes the Mercenary is still in shock, and takes that opportunity to shove him to the ground.

‘See? Everything is fine, you idiot. Clinging to me like some sort of child.’ The Captain scoffs as he crosses his arms.

The Mercenary feels shock for a few seconds. He tries to speak, and he no longer has a lump in his throat. ‘I thought we were going to fucking die? I had no fucking idea what was even happening? I couldn’t even talk! And you’re getting mad at me?’ The Mercenary snaps back.

‘Yeah, I didn’t know what was happening to me either, and I didn’t fucking loose it.’

The Mercenary is glad the Captain can’t see the tears forming in the corner of his eyes. ‘Fuck you man! I’m not a perfect Captain like you! I’m normal!’

‘Oh, and I’m not normal?’

‘No! You never express any emotion-’ The Mercenary looks at his trembling hands. ‘You’re so fucking hollow! You can’t even talk to me! It doesn’t matter if Mercenaries and the Captain aren’t supposed to talk, let alone talk friendly, but this is different! Everyone is gone! We-’ The Mercenary chokes. ‘We only have each other.’

The Captain raises his head disapprovingly. ‘I’m trying to keep us alive.’

‘Without me in the fucking first place you wouldn’t even be alive! I saved you! At least act like you have a little gratitude,’ The Mercenary’s voice squeaks and he feels his face burn up. ‘I’m looking for Acrid.’ The Mercenary chokes out as he turns around and stomps away. He goes to ‘look for Acrid’ despite Acrid being a few steps behind him. Acrid quietly follows the Mercenary as he leaves. 

The Captain looks at the ground and stares at the small plant growth he’s crushed into the mud with his large boots.

The Mercenary walks till he’s able to spot a corner, or someplace where the Captain can’t see him, before dashing, as far as he could.   
Once he thinks he’s far enough, he takes off his helmet and angrily throws it aside. He chokes out a small sob. He bites his tongue. He furrows his brows and wipes his eyes. He drops down, leaning against a fallen tree trunk. 

Acrid brings the Mercenary’s muddied helmet back to him, setting it by his feet before curling up on him, resting his head on his thigh. The Mercenary feels a little anger melt away as he strokes Acrid’s head and his small tail thumps lowly on the ground.

The Mercenary doesn’t know how exactly to feel about all this.


End file.
